The present invention relates to an image information processing apparatus using, e.g., an optical disk.
As is well known, an image information processing apparatus, capable of recording image information in an optical disk, reading out the image information recorded in the optical disk, and displaying the image information on a CRT display unit, has been developed. In such an image information processing apparatus, in order to record the image information in the optical disk or to read out and display the image information recorded in the optical disk, coding or decoding is performed by a codec circuit. In this case, coding or decoding is executed through a buffer memory provided between an image memory and the codec circuit. Therefore, when coding/decoding of data stored in the buffer memory is completed, coding/decoding of the next data cannot be performed until data in the buffer memory is output and new data is transferred to the buffer memory. That is, the codec circuit must wait for a response from the buffer memory. Moreover, in this case, since an image bus is kept occupied by the codec circuit, other I/O units cannot use the image bus. As a result, it is difficult to transfer information at a high speed.